It can be tricky to determine what constitutes a "good deal" on any particular product. Although absurdly expensive and delightfully cheap products are easy to pick out, all the crap in the middle easily muddles together. Last month, I went through all of Sephora's eyeshadow palettes by price per ounce. This month, I'm doing blush.
(I probably shouldn't keep doing these fuckers at the end of the month, since a beginning-of-the-month post would allow me to eliminate an entire word and punctuation mark from my title.)
Because I received a little bit of criticism last month for mooshing together cream and powder eyeshadows, I separated this month into two lists: powder and liquid/cream. As a note, the powder blushes with an asterisk are loose powders, which I tend to find run a little bit pricer than their pressed compatriots. I didn't make a separate list because there weren't very many of them.
I only included single blushes. Sets or products that included highlighters, bronzers, or other products along with the blush were excluded.
Source: http://www.sephora.com/blush-face-makeup
Here they all are:
Powder Blushes
1. Benefit Cosmetics Dallas Blush: $28 for 0.32 oz, $87.50 per ounce
2. Benefit Cosmetics Bella Bamba: $28 for 0.28 oz, $100 per ounce
3. Benefit Cosmetics CORALista Blush: $28 for 0.28 oz, $100 per ounce
4. Benefit Cosmetics Hervana Blush: $28 for 0.28 oz, $100 per ounce
5. Benefit Cosmetics Sugarbomb Blush: $28 for 0.28 oz, $100 per ounce
6. Clinique Blushing Bride Blush: $21 for 0.21 oz, $100 per ounce
7. Clinique Soft-Pressed Powder Blush: $21 for 0.21 oz, $100 per ounce
8. Kat Von D Everlasting Blush: $25 for 0.25 oz, $100 per ounce
9. Smashbox Fusion Soft Lights: $30 for 0.3 oz, $100 per ounce
10. BareMinerals READY Blush: $22 for 0.21 oz, $104.76 per ounce
11. Bobbi Brown Shimmer Brick in Nectar: $42 for 0.4 oz, $105 per ounce
12. Bobbi Brown Shimmer Brick in Pink Quartz: $42 for 0.4 oz, $105 per ounce
13. Bobbi Brown Shimmer Brick in Rose: $42 for 0.4 oz, $105 per ounce
14. Benefit Cosmetics Dandelion Blush: $28 for 0.25 oz, $112 per ounce
15. Stila Custom Color Blush: $20 for 0.17 oz, $117.65 per ounce
16. Tarte Amazonian Clay 12-Hour Blush: $26 for 0.2 oz, $130 per ounce
17. Shiseido Luminizing Satin Face Color: $30 for 0.22 oz, $136.36 per ounce
18. Sephora Collection Colorful Blush: $15 for 0.11 oz, $136.36 per ounce
19. Buxom True Hue Blush: $24 for 0.17 oz, $141.18 per ounce
20. Sephora Collection Microsmooth Baked Blush Duo: $17 for 0.12 oz, $141.67 per ounce
21. Illamasqua Velvet Blusher: $26 for 0.18 oz, $144.44 per ounce
22. Make Up For Ever Blush: $25 for 0.17 oz, $147.06 per ounce
23. Too Faced Sweethearts Perfect Flush Blush: $30 for 0.19 oz, $157.89
24. BECCA Mineral Blush: $32 for 0.2 oz, $160 per ounce
25. Benefit Cosmetics Rockateur Blush: $28 for 0.17 oz, $164.71 per ounce
26. Lancome Blush Subtil: $30 for 0.18 oz, $166.67 per ounce
27. Lancome Blush Subtil Sheer: $30 for 0.18 oz, $166.67 per ounce
28. Lancome Blush Subtil Shimmer: $30 for 0.18 oz, $166.67 per ounce
29. Dior Rosy Glow Healthy Glow Awakening Blush: $44 for 0.26 oz, $169.23 per ounce
30. Clinique Cheek Pop: $21 for 0.12 oz, $175 per ounce
31. Dior DiorBlush Vibrant Colour Powder Blush: $42 for 0.24 oz, $175 per ounce
32. *Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics Pure Cosmetic Pigment: $14 for 0.08 oz, $175 per ounce
33. Bobbi Brown Shimmer Blush: $25 for 0.14 oz, $178.57 per ounce
34. Givenchy Le Prisme Blush Powder: $44 for 0.24 oz, $183.33 per ounce
35. Smashbox Blush Rush: $24 for 0.13 oz, $184.62 per ounce
36. Illamasqua Powder Blusher: $26 for 0.14 oz, $185.71 per ounce
37. NARS Blush: $30 for 0.16 oz, $187.50 per ounce
38. Laura Mercier Shimmer Bloc: $40 for 0.21 oz, $190.48 per ounce
39. Bobbi Brown Blush: $25 for 0.13 oz, $192.31 per ounce
40. Laura Mercier Second Skin Cheek Color: $26 for 0.13 oz, $200 per ounce
41. Marc Jacobs Beauty Shameless Bold Blush: $30 for 0.15 oz, $200 per ounce
42. Edward Bess Blush Extraordinaire: $43 for 0.21 oz, $204.76 per ounce
43. Hourglass Ambient Lighting Blush: $35 for 0.15 oz, $233.33 per ounce
44. Guerlain Rose Aux Joues: $52 for 0.21 oz, $247.62 per ounce
45. Make Up For Ever Powder Blush: $21 for 0.08 oz, $262.50 per ounce
46. Dolce & Gabbana The Blush Luminous Cheek Colour: $45 for 0.17 oz, $264.71 per ounce
47. Make Up For Ever HD Blush: $26 for 0.09 oz, $288.89 per ounce
48. Sunday Riley Blush: $30 for 0.1oz, $300 per ounce
49. Yves Saint Laurent Blush Radiance Radiant Blush: $45 for 0.14 oz, $321.43 per ounce
50. *Smashbox Halo Long Wear Blush: $24 for 0.07 oz, $342.86 per ounce
51. Edward Bess Blush Imperiale: $42 for 0.12 oz, $350 per ounce
52. *BareMinerals Blush: $19 for 0.03 oz, $633.33 per ounce
Mean: $179.70 per ounce
Median: $166.67 per ounce
Standard Deviation: $92.32
Quartiles: Q1-$105; Q2-$166.67; Q3-$192.31
Cream/Liquid Blushes
1. Tarte Maracuja Blush and Glow: $32 for 1 oz, $32 per ounce
2. Givenchy Blush Gelee Jelly Blush: $32 for 1 oz, $34 per ounce
3. Ellis Faas Blush: $32 for 0.8 oz, $40 per ounce
4. Josie Maran Argan Color Stick: $22 for 0.55 oz, $40 per ounce
5. Smashbox O-GLOW Intuitive Cheek Color: $28 for 0.5 oz, $56 per ounce
6. Tarte Cheek Stain: $30 for 0.5 oz, $60 per ounce
7. Benefit Benetint: $30 for 0.42 oz, $71.43 per ounce
8. Benefit ChaCha Tint: $30 for 0.42 oz, $71.43 per ounce
9. Benefit Lollitint: $30 for 0.42 oz, $71.43 per ounce
10. Benefit Posietint: $30 for 0.42 oz, $71.43 per ounce
11. NARS The Multiple: $39 for 0.5 oz, $78 per ounce
12. PERFEKT Cheek Perfection Gel: $28 for 0.33 oz, $84.85 per ounce
13. Clinique Blushwear Cream Stick: $21 for 0.21 oz, $100 per ounce
14. BECCA Beach Tint: $25 for 0.24 oz, $104.17 per ounce
15. Benefit Cosmetics Fine One One: $30 for 0.28 oz, $107.14 per ounce
16. Josie Maran Coconut Watercolor Cheek Gelee: $22 for 0.18 oz, $122.22 per ounce
17. NARS Matte Multiple: $39 for 0.26 oz, $150 per ounce
18. Stila Convertible Color: $25 for 0.15 oz, $166.67 per ounce
19. Givenchy Hydra Sparkling Magic Lip and Cheek Balm: $31 for 0.17 oz, $182.35 per ounce
21. Illamasqua Cream Blusher: $26 for 0.14 oz, $185.71 per ounce
22. Yves Saint Laurent Creme de Blush: $38 for 0.19 oz, $200 per ounce
23. Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics Creme Colour Concentrate: $20 for 0.08 oz, $250 per ounce
24. Stila Lip and Cheek Stain: $24 for 0.08 oz, $300 per ounce
25. Edward Bess Compact Rouge for Lips and Cheeks: $38 for 0.05 oz, $760 per ounce
26. Josie Maran Magic Marker Lip and Cheek Stain: $19 for 0.016 oz, $1187.50 per ounce
Mean: $180.93
Median: $100
Standard Deviation: $255.95
Quartiles: Q1-$65.72; Q2-$100; Q3-$182.35
Combining the two data sets into a histogram gives you a relatively normal-looking distribution:
They do look a bit different, though, when you separate them out. The powder blushes peak around $100-$150 per ounce...
...whereas the cream and liquid products are peaking at $50-$100 per ounce. The cream and liquid products, though, also have a couple more teeny weeny but pricy products on the ludicrously-expensive side of the chart. In fact, the two data sets have near-identical means, but the standard deviation is much higher for the cream and liquid products, and the mean is much lower.
Overall, many of the blushes were really strangely priced, which kind of screws with analysis. The second-least expensive product in this data set is from Givenchy, for fuck's sake. I don't even know how that fucking happened. There have been a lot of price-per-ounce changes recently for cream blushes (the most notable being Tarte's Cheek Stains being halved in size and NARS's Matte Multiples being half the size of the regular Multiple) and I think this really shows why those adjustments are being made: companies are having a really difficult time pricing their cream blushes because everyone's pricing is so damn wacky!
For powder blushes, though, most things make a medium amount of sense, at least. The higher end brands tend to start around $200 per ounce, although there was no clear delineation between mid-range and high-end brands, as there was in the eyeshadow data set. Given the median of $166.67 per ounce, I'd say anything less than $150 per ounce seems to be pretty moderately-to-well priced for Sephora brands.